The Errant Bible

Many people hold the "Holy Bible" to be the inspired, authoritative, and inerrant Word of God. While a fascinating idea, and while the book holds many words of wisdom, it is unfortunately no such thing. The mere concept actually goes against everything good that the book teaches as well as simple logical reasoning.

The Bible teaches that God is love and that God is like our father. Being that God is also depicted as being perfect, then God must be a perfect father with perfect love. In our society today, we see just what happens to children who's father is not present. It is not a pretty picture. And even if a father were to leave a nice big book for his son to read, that doesn't make the son feel any closer to his father. The father must be present, living, and available to guide and direct his child. This is exactly what the Bible teaches, but this is not what the Bible is. The Bible teaches in many locations that one should be listening for God directly. It's a common argument that God uses the Bible to speak to us directly, but this does not prevent a perfect, loving, and all-powerful father from speaking in other ways. And he would most certainly need to since we do not have our noses to the book for the majority of our lives. A good father guides and instructs his son even when the son is not reading a particular book.

Beyond this mere reasoning, it is also undeniable that contradictions exist. That is, it's undeniable to anyone who cares to see the facts. I used to be rather amazing at working my way around the contradictions, but the fact is, anyone can work around any kind of contradiction if they so wish to do so. Take the below story for example. It's riddled with contradictions yet it's perfectly explainable if one wishes to ignore the obvious facts that even a child can see.

One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight.

Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords, and shot each other.

A deaf policeman heard the noise and came and shot the two dead boys.

If you don't believe this story's true, ask the blind man, he saw it too.

This story, while obviously contradictory, is completely explainable to one who wishes to bend the obvious. It could be said that they were in Alaska such that it can be bright during the night time. Perhaps we're referring to two specific boys who are now dead, but were not at the time they got up to fight. They must have had swords with guns (much like a bayonet) and they "faced-off" by doing the well-known gun fighting protocol which starts back to back. Finally, the policeman must not yet have been deaf and the blind man not yet blind. And all one needs to do to add these clarifications is to create yet another juxtaposing story that one can piece together as evidence.

It was the third Saturday of the second Month in Alaska. Two children began fighting with each other.

They agreed to a duel using their gunblades. Surprisingly, they both ended up missing each other when they shot!

Unfortunately for them, however, a policeman was nearby and he ended up shooting them both dead.

These very shots actually echoed violently in the ears of the policeman and he went deaf from it!

Jimmy, who recently went blind via a chemical accident, actually saw it all unfold. Just ask him!

In short, a person who is capable of explaining an obvious contradiction does not so vindicate the story. Instead, he merely demonstrates his cleverness and his intellectual dishonesty. And when a person is predisposed to believe something such as the inerrancy of the Bible, any explanation is a good enough explanation. However, when one allows the Bible to be errant as it is, a whole new story emerges from within it. A story of two tales. A story of those attempting to remove their own guilt via a scapegoat and a story of genuine lovers of peace speaking against it. It is actually quite amazing!

Christians are often distraught by such a concept, however, as it throws a wrench in their whole faith. This is because their faith is built around the book and not around the God described within it. In fact, they're so not used to the concept of a living God that can speak, that news of a fallible Bible is often retorted with, "Well how do we know what to accept and what to throw out? We either trust it all or trust none of it!" This is entirely terrible logic, of course, as I can say, "The cat was flying through the blue sky." You mustn't need accept the whole thing or reject the whole thing lest you allow cats to fly or disallow the sky to be blue. It's a fallacy to think one needs to spell out what is trustworthy and what is not. Truth will be truth and lies will be lies whether we know which is which or not. As Jesus himself said in the BIble, "Determine for yourself what is right."

Jesus was entirely anti-religion and holding to the Bible as the authoritative word of God is just that: religion. And for this reason, Jesus was murdered by the religious of his day much like many would wish to murder me for these mere words. I've had seemingly nice people suddenly begin screaming in my face and calling me a Luciferian because of these words. They prove with their own character who their God is--and it isn't the one described in the Bible. It proves the words Jesus once spoke, "Anyone who desires to live a righteous life shall be persecuted."

A proper religious devotion could hardly be called religious by its normal definition. A good religion is one that recognizes God as being good and thus serves what they understand as being good. Blindly calling everything in a book good and strictly adhering to every word is a dangerous and evil religion. If God is good, then serve good and no doubt you will be serving your God. Any other way, and there's no telling who or what you are serving. Simply be true to your own understanding of good and a good God would be pleased. He could ask for nothing more.